Q.Can you give me the proper way to freeze corn on the cob so it doesn’t lose its firmness? – Edward Serfin, Demotte, Ind.
A. Sorry, but this is outside my area of expertise, and I don’t want to give advice on food preparation since improperly stored foods could actually cause one of my readers harm! Please contact the consumer and family science educator at your county Cooperative Extension Service office. He or she is specially trained in this area.
HOME BREW:
A reader wrote about having some success controlling Japanese beetles with a brew of chewing tobacco in water. There is some precedent to using nicotine sulfate as an insecticide. It poisons the insect as it feeds upon the sprayed leaves. Unfortunately, nicotine sulfate is also dangerous to the gardener.
While many home brews are effective, you are dealing with unknown concentrations and risks. We all need to be careful with household remedies since they expose us to these unknowns. Millions of dollars are spent testing each commercial pesticide determining concentrations, safety issues, and effectiveness on the pests.
Pesticides can enter your system by mouth, eyes, lungs or skin! Please be as careful (or more!) using home brews as you would if you were using a labeled pesticide.